Arven Ruun
|birth= |death= |rank=Detective |class= |species= |gender= Male |height= |weight= |weapons=* * |equipment= |vehicles= |hair= |eyes= Black |skin= Gray |cyber= |era=* * |types= |notable= |affiliation=* * * }} Arven Ruun was a officer originally with the , and later a veteran detective attached to 's Investigation Division. As the head of a decorated unit charged with investigating unsolved or incomplete crimes, Arven specialized in the deduction of cold cases. Biography Early Life Born in the colony on around 2150, Arven Ruun was raised solely by his father, Arven Narl, a middle-ranking administrator who worked for . However, whilst it remained unclear to all why he was raised separate from his mother, the fact that Arven himself never revealed the reasons suggets that the reasons were important. Because his father had been posted to Erinle alongside a division of Binary Helix, Arven spent a huge amount of childhood on Erinle. Upon reaching maturity at age 17, Arven traveled offworld to attend university. Throughout his education, Arven showed outstanding deductive and analytical skills – even by salarian standards – and excelled in pathology. Many of Arven's tutors recommended he become a scientist, though he instead felt more committed to joining the salarian military. This interest was not approved of by his father when he returned to Erinle, who felt that he was wasting his potential by becoming a soldier. Despite this outrage, Arven was able to successfully convince his teachers and get their recommendation for a military enrollment. After much consideration, Arven's father reluctantly agreed, and when he reached a reasonable age, Arven left Erinle and traveled to the salarian homeworld of . There, he enlisted into the , though after fiv years of active service, Arven left the military and journeyed into . Prior to his departure, Arven was personally offered a place in due to his notable talents in forensic pathology, though he turned down the offer for unknown reasons. would later remark that Arven's refusal had been particularly disappointing. Later in his life, Arven would come to regret his refusal to join. Citadel Fleet After moving onto the and buying his own apartment in the , Arven decided to join the . Eventually, he received a promotion that made him a captain, and he participated in a number of military tours that took him deep into the and similar regions of space. Although the Citadel Fleet was primarily concerned with safeguarding Citadel space, Arven's assignments usually functioned as scouting missions, whereby he would venture out to eliminate threats that could threaten the Citadel in the future. A year after his recruitment, Arven's father passed away, causing him much emotional pain. The fact that he did not visit his father in his last few years did little to ease his grief. However, his death did motivate Arven to put his full commitment into the fleet so as to honor his father. He soon gained an impressive service record, though never received any promotions above the rank of captain. Despite this, Arven still served the Fleet to the best of his ability. During one operation, Arven was assigned to track down the murderer of a high-ranking officer, who had apparently been partaking in some particularly shifty dealings. After months of investigation, Arven's assignment brought him to crime-ridden space station of , where he received a reliable tip from Omega's "de facto" ruler, , that the galaxy's most powerful and enigmatic informant, the , was involved in the turian's death. Using this information, Arven managed to get a lead on an elusive information trafficker known only as "Watcher", whom Aria suggested was actually a Shadow Broker agent. Aware that his allegiances had now been discovered, Watcher hired a number of mercenaries to take out Arven, though to no avail. After a three week chase, Arven was able to capture Watcher, though at the cost of seven hostages' lives. After intensive interrogation, Arven learned that the turian officer had actually been a Shadow Broker agent himself, though was eliminated once it was learned that he planned to turn all his information over to the . This decision was brought about when the turian began feeling guilt for double-crossing his superiors, resulting in Watcher being assigned to organize the assassination. Little else is known about what Arven did to Watcher, though it is known that after learning all he could from the informant, he reluctantly handed him over to and had him imprisoned in the ' security ship, .Following this particular assignment, Arven reluctantly retired from service in the Citadel Fleet after the Shadow Broker retaliated by organizing a series of events that forced him to leave the Fleet. C-Sec Career Upon returning to his home on the Citadel, Arven was unable to find any work that either engaged or challenged him, causing him to have serious thoughts of leaving the station to return to his homeworld of Erinle to aid in the work there. However, Arven instead chose to join , the Citadel's voluntary police service. Because of his previous military service, Arven was able to swiftly pass through recruitment. Although he initially attempted to join the Special Response Division, Arven felt that his earlier handling of Watcher's hostage situation made him ill-suited for the job, so he instead applied for C-Sec's Investigation Division. Not long after being recruited, Arven found himself appalled by the flaws he found in C-Sec's systems and policies. In response to this, he attempted to change the foundations of C-Sec from the inside, though his revolutionary ideas were met with criticism and distaste. After a year of pushing for change, Arven gave up, though would still try his best to ensure C-Sec's services could not be so easily exploited. Despite his beliefs, he enjoyed a very strong working relationship with , who often gave positive accounts of Arven's work, though was also quick to disagree with his controversial views. As time passed, Arven began to take an interest in the "cold cases" that his department were presented with; cases or crimes that had not yet been completely solved by C-Sec detectives. Through his keen analytical abilities, Arven solved a large number of these cold cases, which eventually resulted in him being placed in charge of specialized team intent on investigating these specific crimes. Most of the assignments that were given to them were solved in great detail, resulting in Arven's team gaining recognition and respect amongst the Citadel public and the rest of C-Sec. Despite his radical views, Arven eventually became a friend of 's father, a respected C-Sec officer who shared his "by-the-book" outlook. One of his most notable cases was in 2175, when he was tasked with investigating the death of an influential merchant, who had been killed seven years prior. Although a law-abiding trader, the volus was notable for his extreme prejudice against , which instantly pointed suspicion towards supporters. Through extensive use of forensics, C-Sec resources, incomplete evidence and psychological profiling, Arven and his team was able to deduce that the volus had actually been killed by a male human assassin, though they were unable to pinpoint his exact identity or allegiance. Despite this, the team were able to discover that the assassin had actually been an operative of tje extreme human-supremacist organization . Apart from the volus' anti-human attitude, Cerberus' reasoning for killing the merchant was never determined. Despite this, Arven's unit was still praised for uncovering the plot and people behind the murder. Another noteworthy case was when he stopped a small drug cartel from expanding within the Zakera Ward, an encounter made memorable by the fact that he had to single-handedly kill two bodyguards to arrest the ringleader. A popular rumor amongst C-Sec officers was that after shutting down the cartel, Arven celebrated by drinking two glasses of asari honey mead, a shot of ale and a pint of . Whether there was any element of truth in the tale was neither confirmed nor denied by high-ranking C-Sec officials or Ruun himself. In his limited free time, Arven was occasionally spotted drinking at the nightclub . Despite this, Arven was able to control his drinking issue enough to prevent it from interfering with his work. At some point during his career, Arven was considered as a potential recruit for the Citadel's branch. However, despite his previous military record and his excellent C-Sec record, the Council chose to reject his candidacy. Though he officially maintained that they did not find a C-Sec officer like himself suited to the high demands of the Spectres, records held by the Citadel Council indicated that some doubts were beginning to arise over Arven's physical capabilities due to his age. Privately, however, Arven advised the Council's to turn him down, citing that the Spectre's extralegal powers went against everything he believed in. It was also around this time that C-Sec and the Council had become aware that he had become mild alcoholic, which allegedly had an affect on their hesitance to instate him as a Spectre. Battle of the Citadel Much later in 2183, Arven was present on the Citadel when the vanguard attacked with a small army of , which quickly overwhelmed the station's defenses by assuming control from within. Through the rouge Spectre , Sovereign closed the surrounding it while it began using the to override the station's controls and manually open the relay to . During this time, Arven found himself pinned down in the , where he and his team were forced to hold off on their own against a number of . As the battle progressed, however, the geth slowly overwhelmed the rest of Arven's team and kill them. Though he was able to hold out and survive on his own, Arven was badly wounded. When and his squad successfully killed Saren and destroyed Sovereign, Arven was nearly killed when the debris of the Reaper caused extensive damage to the Ward. Fortunately, he was salvaged from the ruins and nursed back to health at the before he could die. Aftermath Whilst his wounds were attended to relatively quickly, Arven was forced to take a short period of leave from C-Sec to fully recuperate. In this time, he was seen frequenting the . After fully recovering and returning to work, Arven was among the chief supporters for change in C-Sec's infrastructure, and the service subsequently underwent a radical reorganization. This also resulted in C-Sec tightening its security to reduce the possibility of geth infiltration. Since a vast number of C-Sec operatives had been killed during Sovereign's attack, Arven was given a new investigation team of mostly human officers. Though he was initially very reluctant to work with this new unit, Arven eventually came to respect his co-workers. At some point following Sovereign's invasion, Arven was tasked with identifying the specific causes of death of the many citizens who had been killed in the lower Wards of the Citadel, work which he found particularly confronting. In addition, he was also ordered to investigate the whereabouts of many of the people who had disappeared during Sovereign's attack, though most of these unaccounted people turned out to be dead victims of the geth attack. Shortly afterwards, Arven and his unit was stationed in the C-Sec outpost in the . In 2185, two years after the Battle of the Citadel, Arven was investigating the alleged criminal network controlled by a racketeer under the alias "Fade". Unknown to him, this dealer was actually a former human C-Sec officer named . After Harkin's criminal identity was uncovered by Commander Shepard and Garrus Vakarian, Arven was sent to track him down and take him into custody, tasks which he carried out successfully. Reaper Invasion When the Reapers initiated their invasion of the galaxy in 2186, Arven Ruun attempted to retire from C-Sec so as to transfer back into the Citadel Fleet. This decision after reports of the Reapers' offensive attacks reached the Citadel, causing Arven to feel he would better serve the Citadel in its defense fleet. Despite this, however, his transfer request was denied by , who cited that with massive waves of refugees inbound, he was needed to help maintain law and order on the station. Though reluctant, Arven accepted Bailey's reasoning and remained in C-Sec. Not long after, Arven's cold case unit was closed down so as to better focus his squad's attention on more pressing matters on the Citadel. After finding a well-needed gap in his duties, Arven discovered that Aria T'Loak had illegally arrived on the Citadel without being properly cleared, the nature of her arrival having gone unnoticed for three weeks after she had established herself. After learning this, Arven sent two officers down to the dance club to confront her on the matter. Around the time Commander Shepard was attempting to gain the support of the on their homeworld of , Arven was reassigned to the salarian councilor's security detail. When Cerberus launched an on the Citadel, Arven remained with the councilor's bodyguards whilst the salarian representative hid away in the Executor's office. Whilst the guards sealed themselves up in the office, Arven split off from them to provide cover fire, hunting down nearby Cerberus troopers in the area and eliminating them. During his scouting, Arven unwittingly stumbled across , a Cerberus assassin sent to kill the councilor. Despite Ruun's military experience, Kai Leng proved far too powerful an adversary to match, and after a brief firefight, he was dealt a mortal injury from Leng's palm blaster and subsequently left to die. Too weak to pursue, Arven bled to death shortly after Shepard and his squad arrived on the Citadel to deal with the threat, yet his confrontation gave the commander time to catch up with Leng. After Cerberus' coup was thwarted, Arven's bravery was acknowledged by C-Sec and the general Citadel public, and he was posthumously decorated for his sacrifices. A private memorial was held by his close friends and work colleagues in memory of his commitment to Citadel security. A picture of Ruun was later added to the memorial wall in the of the Citadel. Per his final requests, Arven's body was returned to Erinle, where it was then buried. His death also had a mild demoralizing effect on the members of the who had previously worked with him in the past. Personality Like many salarians, Arven had an extremely analytical mind and a photographic memory, traits which served him extremely well in his role as a detective. He was also very intelligent and skilled at making logical deductions. Arven was also an expert in forensic pathologist, which was reflected in his ability to determine the exact causes of a death in a victim from a quick glance. His skills in pathology was what originally attracted the attention of the Special Tasks Group, and was also their key motivator during their attempt to recruit him. Although aware of his potential as a scientist, Arven favored the role of a detective, feeling that his skills could be put to better use in more constructive public services. As a person, however, Arven was quite cold and skeptical, and it took time to earn his trust, let alone his friendship. However, he was an extremely driven individual, and never allowed his personal opinions and feelings get in the way of his job. Unfortunately, he was sometimes noted for pushing himself and others too far during investigations, which made him difficult to work with sometimes. Though it was not outwardly noticeable, Arven had a very strong sense of duty and honor, and would not employ rough or violent tactics in his work. Because of his moral code, he had a very strong "by the book" viewpoint, which was believed to be the reason why he didn't join extralegal teams such as the Special Tasks Group or the Spectres. In addition, Arven was a firm believer in discipline and organization, and when he initially joined C-Sec, he was disheartened by the flaws he noticed in the service's structure. This led him to campaign for change in the group's foundations, though his efforts were met with limited success. It is also noteworthy that Arven suffered from a mild alcoholic problem, a problem which he battled for many years of his life. Fortunately, he had enough control over the problem to ensure that it didn't affect his work. Like all salarians, Arven possessed a high-speed metabolism, which allowed him to function on just one hour of sleep a day. His mind and body also worked faster as a result of this, though he later trained himself to consciously slow down his naturally hyperactive speech so he could be understood. Since most salarians live for only 40 human years, Arven was fairly old by his race's standards by the time of his death, being around 36 years old. Equipment Due to his training in the military, Arven was skilled in the use of various firearms, and was capable of holding his ground against most opponents. When forced into fights demanding weaponry, Arven usually carried military-grade assault rifles or pistols. Following the widespread adoption of by the galactic community, Arven took to using a standard rifle, though due to his role as a C-Sec detective, he rarely used it. Instead, Arven primarily using a heavy pistol on investigations that brought into him potential shoot-outs. Arven also made use of a custom-made , which was based on the schematics for the model. Whilst the extent of his personal modifications are unknown, Arven's omni-tool was noted for being reconfigured to suit him as a left-hander, having infrared scanners, an advanced cryptographic sequencer and a signal interceptor. Though some of these programs were designed by Arven himself, a number of others were unique prototypes commissioned by high-ranking officers in Citadel Fleet to suit his role as a scout. Behind the Scenes In earlier drafts of the character, Arven Ruun was intended to be a Special Tasks Group operative, though this idea was later dropped so as to explore more unique ideas for the character. Other ideas included making him a Eclipse mercenary or a Shadow Broker agent, though both these ideas were also dropped. He was later envisioned as a C-Sec detective, as his creator felt interested in exploring the potential of a police-based character. Areven's drinking problem and specialty as a "cold case" detective were inspired by aspects of two longrunning British police television dramas. His alcoholism was based off a defining flaw in Superintendant Jane Tennison from Prime Suspect, whilst his work as the head of a cold case police team was inspired by Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd, who leads a cold case unit in Waking the Dead. Trivia *Prior to his death, the kept several files on Arven onboard . Category:Salarians Category:C-Sec officers Category:Detectives Category:Males